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Discussion:

Early history of the town

'King Edward', remarked Bishop Anian of St Asaph in 1281, 'has built an important and well-frequented town... and protected it with towers and earthworks'.[334] Rhuddlan was one of three new towns established by Edward's men in north Wales in 1277. The other two were its close neighbour, Flint, likewise occupying a site on the north coast, and Aberystwyth, located on Cardigan bay on the west coast. All three of these '1277 towns' lay at the edge of the Welsh stronghold of Snowdonia, and were the precursors to those later new towns, of the 1280s, that were positioned much closer to its geographical centre. Rhuddlan's foundation and early history is comparatively well-documented. It was in fact a new town added to an already existing, earlier town of Norman origin. Norman Rhuddlan was established in the 1080s, soon after the Conquest, by Robert - cousin of Hugh of Avranches, earl of Chester - who had in turn made use of the site of a yet earlier town, an Anglo-Saxon burh called Cledemutha, founded in 921.[335] Each of these successive 'new towns' occupied the same elevated terrace above the Clwyd river, and stretched along its eastern bank, that is, the English side of the river. Both the Anglo-Saxon and Norman new towns had defensive circuits, the latter also having a castle, a motte, as well as 18 burgesses, a mill, a church and a mint in 1086.[336] The Edwardian town of 1277 was placed adjacent and to the north of the earlier Norman one, and a new castle built between them.

It is clear that while the Edwardian town was being created in 1277-8 there were still inhabitants living in the adjacent Norman town. This is evident from archeological work. Excavation within the eleventh-century defensive circuit shows domestic sites continued to be occupied, and that the Norman church survived until around 1300.[337] This area is likely to be that referred to as 'old town' in a later, fifteenth-century survey of Rhuddlan's burgess properties.[338] Work actually began on Edward's new town in the summer of 1277. The first recorded activity concerned digging a new and straightened alignment of the Clwyd river to provide easier and safer access between the town and the sea for shipping. This work was possibly being carried out under the direction of Master William of Boston, fossator, who was enlisting diggers in Lincolnshire in July.[339] The king himself was at Rhuddlan over a three-month period in the autumn of 1277, from where he visited other works going on at that time, including work at Flint.[340] Arnold Taylor suggests this was when work began on the castle, continuing through til 1280 by which time the castle 'was substantially a finished structure'.[341] Meanwhile, from August 23 onwards, William of Perton, one of the king's clerks, was the appointed keeper of works at Rhuddlan (as well as Flint).[342] Before the king left Rhuddlan, another clerk, Nicholas Bonel, was made 'surveyor of his works... both at Le Cheynou [Flint] and at Rothelan'.[343] Perton and Bonel were administrators and were there to act on behalf of the king as local overseers of the works, which included both town and castle. As well as these two clerks, further local co-ordination was provided by a Master Bertram, a military engineer who hailed originally from Gascony in south-west France and who specialised in siege operations.[344] In the castle-construction work, Bertram was subsequently joined by Master James of St George, in April 1278.[345]

By the time Master James of St George was in Rhuddlan in the spring of 1278, work on the new town was seemingly already complete. Earlier, at the start of February, Nicholas Bonel along with the justice of Chester, Guncelin de Batelesmere, and Howel, son of Griffin, were appointed by the king 'to assess his burgages at Rothalan... and to grant and demise at a fixed rent all his lands in those parts'.[346] A month later, in mid-March, Guncelin and Master William of Louth, the king's clerk, were appointed 'to commit, assign, and to assess lands and places in Rothelan to all who desire to receive and hold the same from the king, according to their discretion'.[347] That burgages were being taken up in Rhuddlan at around this time is indicated in a confirmation of a grant of seven of them to seven men, as well as arable land and 'land in the king's woods there, which they are to uproot and assart', providing 'that they dwell in Rhuddlan'.[348] It would appear, then, that by February the town's burgages were ready to be granted out, and so presumably the town was already laid out. This may mean that the ground plan of the streets and plots of the town (and also the adjoining castle) were decided during the autumn period when the king was present, perhaps through the combined thinking of the king's clerks, Perton and Bonel, with the help of Master Bertram. Bonel was the 'king's receiver' in Rhuddlan in 1278, and Howel was bailiff.[349] By the autumn of 1278 the town had a 'charter of liberties' granted by the king. This was issued in November and the terms of it were the same as those set out in the charter for Builth that was granted on the same day, both being based upon the customs of Hereford.[350] In this regard, Rhuddlan's charter was similar to others issued by Edward in Wales, while also preserving the privileges enjoyed by the earlier Norman town.

Through 1278 and 1279 development of the town continued together with the castle and new river alignment. In September 1278, the king granted a Thomas Kyng permission to extend his burgage, as was the 'late wife of William de Penyton', Margaret.[351] This and the seven burgages granted earlier in February indicates that people were arriving to take up properties in the town even before the charter of liberties was granted. Two of these new arrivals were named Richard le Waleys - 'the Welsh' - and Richard le Engleys - 'the English'.[352] In March 1279, the parson of Rhuddlan church, Master Bernard, informed the king that his men occupied some of the church's land that was being used to enlarge the site 'upon which the king's castle of Rothelan is founded' and 'in order to build burgages near the castle'.[353] The land referred to was presumably that associated with the Norman church which lay just to the south-east of Edward's new castle.[354] Then, in July, two years after work had first started at Rhuddlan, the king ordered a survey of the town to take place and sent Master William of Louth, his clerk, 'to view the void plots of land (placeas) and other plots in that town, and to assess and rent burgages in the same plots and to demise the burgages at the king's will'.[355] Some plots were clearly taken up by then, while some were yet to be occupied. Those that had been granted needed to be assessed. In this regard, William of Perton and Master James, 'keepers of the king's works at Rothelan', as well as the townspeople living there, were instructed to aid Master William in his task.[356]

Building on the town's burgages continued. In November 1280 we hear that the 'men of Rothelan', the burgesses, 'are now building the town and are expending and will expend great costs about making the town, building it and improving it', as they had promised the king they would do.[357] Earlier in the same year, in January, the king had requested that William of Perton and Master James were to oversee the granting of surrounding cleared woodland to those 'having houses in the town', and to this end they were also to 'make a book in which shall be contained such sales, deliveries, grants and feoffments and forms, which shall always be preserved as a record in the castle', no doubt intended to provide evidence in any future disputes between the town's burgesses.[358] Through 1279 and 1280 the new town and its growing population was thus subjected to a series of visitations, inspections and surveys by royal administrators, and a close eye kept on how things were progressing. Some insight on the activities of the early immigrant burgesses is provided by a lengthy judicial report of November 1282 on the customs and laws the Welsh ought to be ruled by.[359] Burgesses of Rhuddlan were asked by the enquiry about the borough's customs. One, John de Pelham, said 'that he heard from the account of the burgesses of Rhuddlan that the present king granted to them the same liberties as burgesses of Hereford have', but that 'he rarely went to the court of Rhuddlan because he is a merchant and has lately come to the town... and is much away from the town for the purposes of trade'.[360] Another burgess, William Wirvyn, described himself as a 'newcomer' and said to the enquiry that 'he has come lately to Wales and has dwelt for a short time only at Rhuddlan'.[361] It seems therefore that newly arriving burgesses became aware of the town's customs by word of mouth, and that their business activities sometimes required them to spend time away from their homes in the town.

As well as developing burgages during these first few years, there was work to do on the town's defences. While examining burgages and plots of land in his survey of July 1279, Master William of Louth was also asked to look at the town ditch 'about that town and the king's port there'.[362] The 'great costs about making the town' being expended by the burgesses, referred to in November 1280, most likely included work on the town's ditch.[363] There was also royal expenditure. In the period between March 1279 and November 1280, £418 was spent on the wages of diggers working in the town, most likely on its defences;[364] while out of the £251 spent on the town as a whole between 1280 and 1282, £120 went on paying the wages of diggers working on the town's defences, with £61 on carpenters.[365] Carts were required to move earth and timber and in 1279-80 cartage costs for the town works amounted to £120.[366] Later on, timber was being procured to make a palisade to supplement the ditch. In July 1282, for example, carts were carrying timber from Delamere forest in Cheshire to Rhuddlan 'in order to enclose that town and to make dwellings there'.[367] Also in July, Stephen of Howden, a royal clerk in Chester, supervised acquiring timber 'for the palisade at Rhuddlan', which arrived there by water in August and twenty carts took it up from the riverside into the town.[368] Then a watchman was appointed to guard it, being paid 2½d a day to do so.[369] The following year, however, the palisade was taken from Rhuddlan and shipped up the coast to Caernarfon and used instead 'for the construction of the castle and town there'.[370] So in the end Rhuddlan may have had little more than ditched defences, and even then this may have been an incomplete circuit for archaeological work in the town has so far identified only a section of double-bank and ditch that still survives as earthworks north of the town.[371] March 1282 saw Welsh forces attack Rhuddlan, and no doubt the partial defences did not help the town's plight.[372]

During 1282 and into 1283, the second Welsh war, Edward based himself at Rhuddlan.[373] By then £9500 had been spent on the castle, while further outlay was needed on the town's bridge and king's mills after the Welsh attack, probably to repair them.[374] The effects of the war on the town may also have prompted a letter sent by the burgesses to the king. In it they complained that 'though the men of the town loyally undertook the repair of the roads and the market, they were disturbed by war', and that 'so many Welsh are lodged near the town on the outside that they disturb the profit and the market of the English, and give voice to much treason among them'.[375] As an English bastion on the north Welsh coast however, Rhuddlan was soon to be superceded by Conwy and Caernarfon. That Edward had intended great things for Rhuddlan is indicated by the plans he had in 1280-1 to move the cathedral from nearby St Asaph to a new site in the town, providing the ground for it as well as finance.[376] He described the site of the town as 'an outstanding one, spacious and very well protected', but papal approval was not forthcoming and the war intervened, and with it the move never took place.[377] Flint became the county town, while the episcopal seat stayed at St Asaph . In September 1284, at the same time as the king granted charters to his two newly-established towns of Conwy and Caernarfon, Rhuddlan was also issued with a charter making it a 'free borough', all three charters sharing the same written formula.[378] The charter may have been intended to help get Rhuddlan back on its feet, perhaps in response to the burgesses' concerns after the war. St Mary's church was also damaged in the attack of 1282,[379] and it is possible that this prompted its move from the Norman town to the new one of Edward's, perhaps even to the site that had been intended for the cathedral. Certainly little was left standing of the Norman church after its demolition, for re-usable building materials were deliberately removed.[380] Ten years after the Welsh attack, 75 taxpayers are recorded in the town.[381] By 1300, the town had effectively shifted from its Norman site to the new Edwardian one. To mark this move there may even have been some ceremonial infilling of the ditches of the earlier town.[382]

The early history of Rhuddlan is one of the better documented of Edward's new towns. Through the period of 1277-1282 emerges a picture of a town coming into being, a scene of much activity on the part of the king's men, as well as burgesses taking up residence there. Through royal surveys and letters, the level of bureaucracy involved is evident too, and of course it is thanks to this administrative burden that the town's story is known. It was certainly a place favoured by the king, at least early on, as revealed in his aspirations for it, and also in choosing Rhuddlan as his headquarters both in 1277 and in 1282-3. It seems that the men instrumental earliest on in making the town were William of Perton and Nicholas Bonel, the king's clerks, but there was also the contribution made by others, including William of Louth, Guncelin de Batelesmere, Howel, son of Griffin, and Masters James, Bertram and William of Boston, as well as the king himself. What is clear is that the town was created at the same time as the castle was being built, the river straightened, the defences made, and that burgesses were soon arriving, perhaps only a few months after the town was established, and only subsequently did the place then become legally a borough, an enfranchised town. This documented process of urban development of Rhuddlan provides a useful framework though which to interpret the town's plan and design.

Design and plan of the town

Edward's new town extends in parallel alongside the river Clwyd, to the north-west of the castle. Its layout is evident in the surviving pattern of the town's streets and plots, and these display some interesting characteristics. The main street, High Street, is orientated north-east/south-west, while two more minor streets run across this, one running from the castle to the church (Castle Street and Church Street), and the other, to its north, running more or less parallel (Parliament Street and Gwindy Street).[383] The town's streets intersect at skewed angles of about 110 and 70 degrees, rather than at ninety-degrees. This gives the town an overall rhomboidal or diamond shape, a 'flattened' rectangle, similar in fact to the castle's shape.[384] The angle of the streets and their alignments are also reflected in the shape of the town's defences. This is particularly clear in the surviving corner-section of double-bank and ditch earthworks in the north of the town. The angle of this corner matches that of the cross-streets intersecting with High Street. The streets and the defences thus seem to correspond in plan, and this suggests that both were set out at the same time, to a single design. However, the street-blocks of the town are different in size, and contain plots that form quite irregular patterns. So overall, Rhuddlan's streets and defences have a more regular appearance than its layout of plots. This difference in form probably stems from the town's initial planning and early development.

Whether the town's defences were completed as a continuous circuit is questionable. As noted above, the archaeological and documentary evidence would suggest the town was only partially defended, with only the earthwork alignment between the river and the corner-section to the north of Gwindy Street being attested.[385] Through property boundaries shown on eighteenth and nineteenth century maps it is possible, however, to trace a continuation in the alignment of the ditch from this northern corner. Its route is south-eastwards across High Street, then onwards behind plots facing onto Parliament Street to meet with another excavated section of ditch at Castle Street, which appears to link with the castle's ditch.[386] This postulated section of town ditch would then make a complete circuit around the north of the town, with the river and castle flanking and protecting its southern side. The plots fronting Parliament Street extend back to a common 'back fence' that in places is staggered, as if at some point in the past some of these plots were extended over the line of a former ditch. A fifteenth-century survey of properties in Rhuddlan records some parts of burgages situated 'upon le Diche', as well as properties against or on 'le Paledich' and 'le Hempendich'.[387] The locations of these are uncertain but they may be lost sections of town ditch. At the point where the postulated alignment would have crossed High Street there is also a narrowing in the road's width, an indication of a lost gateway. The fifteenth century survey is again suggestive, for three properties are noted to be 'beyond the Barres', possibly a reference to an entrance into the defended town.[388] Even if the defences along this northern side of the town where never completed fully, these are perhaps signs that a ditch was set out on this alignment.[389]

The known and postulated ditch alignments define the area of the Edwardian town, as well as its overall shape. This area between the river, the castle and the ditch-alignments encompasses around 20½ acres (82,600m²), rather larger than the area contained within the Norman defences, but smaller than that of the earlier burh.[390] The record of Edward's men working at Rhuddlan's makes it possible to suggest how the town's plan was formed and laid out over 1277-8. The earliest work was on straightening the course of the river, and it looks as if the town's plan was arranged to fit this since the cross-streets and northern ditch-alignment are all set out parallel to it. The position of the castle in relation to the town also seems to be thought out and deliberate for it occupies a position the same distance from High Street as the ditch alignment is at the opposite end of the town, giving the whole town a balanced, almost symmetrical layout with High Street forming the central axis.[391] It seems then that the castle, streets and town-defences were conceived and laid out as a single entity, since the whole site has a unity in form. The town defences and streets were probably marked out when work on the river and castle was proceeding, during summer and autumn 1277. The town was ready for burgesses by February 1278, so the streets must have been formed by then. The design itself may have been worked out during Edward's stay at Rhuddlan, which was before castle construction began in November 1277, but after the digging of the new river channel had begun in July or August. Edward was staying there on and off in August, as well as between September and November.[392] This was the time that William of Perton was keeper of the works at Rhuddlan (and Flint), and Nicholas Bonel 'surveyor' of works.[393] Either man could have been responsible for drawing up the town plan, in consort with the king, no doubt also with some consultation with Master Bertram, the castle's mason at that time, and perhaps even with Master William of Boston who was in charge of the river straightening.

As 'surveyor' of the works, Bonel may have had the necessary skills to undertake the practical job of positioning the town's streets and defences after the plan had been decided. Later, when William of Louth was asked to survey the town, it is clear that some expertise of this sort would be required, for example in assessing existing plots and burgages, presumably with measurements taken, the details being written down in the kind of record that Master James and William of Perton were subsequently asked to produce. Equally, though, Perton's role at Rhuddlan, and his earlier work there than Bonel's, could show that he was concerned with laying out the town. Both Perton and Bonel were also involved at Flint at this time, and interestingly while the plan of the town there shows no obvious similarities to that at Rhuddlan the double-bank-and-ditch defences of the two towns do.[394] Either way, Master James arrives too late on the scene at Rhuddlan to have had an input on the design and planning of the new town, and likewise William of Louth, though he had been responsible, it seems, in 'the foundation of the obscure bastide of Cassac [sic] in the Médoc', in Gascony.[395] Louth's surveying of Rhuddlan was to see what was already done there, while Bonel's role as surveyor of works was more likely to be to mark out the ground with streets in preparation for building up burgages. That there may have been a delay between setting out the streets and laying out properties is suggested by the apparent variety in size and shape of plots within the town's street-blocks, lacking the regular rectilinear layout evident in the street-pattern and the overall shape of the town.

In comparison to some of Edward's other new towns in north Wales, such as Flint, Conwy and Beaumaris, Rhuddlan's plot-patterns are unusually disordered. No standard burgage size is recorded for the town.[396] Instead, the documentary record hints that burgages in the town were developed gradually, over a period of a year or so, rather than simply set out in one go, and adopted and built upon by burgesses. The survey conducted by William of Louth and Guncelin of Batelesmere in March 1278 seems to show this process at work, for they were 'to commit, assign, and to assess lands and places in Rothelan to all who desire to receive and hold the same from the king, according to their discretion'.[397] It may be that if the original plots had been fixed, the arriving townspeople soon adapted them to their own needs, hence the requirement for the royal administrators to keep an eye on things early on. The instruction given to Bonel in February 1278, to 'assess' the town's burgages, perhaps indicates the initial stage of defining the bounds of property parcels, while subsequent surveys overseen by William of Louth, in March 1278 and July 1280, were to check on the process of their take-up by the burgesses.[398] Since he was having 'to assess and rent burgages in the same plots', the parcels were there already and what he was doing was assigning them as burgages - as legally-defined units of land tenure - to those coming to the town.[399] From early 1278 onwards burgesses were arriving and doubtless decided whereabouts they would like to be. In February 1278, in the earliest reference to burgages in the town, the location of one of them is arranged.[400] An uneven take-up of burgages would leave empty areas of the town's street-blocks, hence the presence of 'void plots' that Louth was surveying in July 1280. A further indication of the protracted development of the burgages is the mention, in March 1279, of men building burgages near the castle, and then, more than a year later, another reference to burgesses 'building the town'.[401] Such a gradual process would account for the variations in plots shapes and sizes at Rhuddlan.

The making of Edwardian Rhuddlan thus appears to have involved two distinct stages. The first being the design and planning of the town's overall layout of streets and defences, tied into the castle building work and the digging of the new river alignment. This must have been begun and completed by the end of 1277. The second stage involved the development of burgages within the street-blocks, probably using pre-defined property parcels as a basis but gradually obscuring the arrangement of these as the plots were acquired by burgesses and built up during 1278-80. This second stage could have seen some parts of the town more favoured by burgesses than others. That some parts were not developed at this time is indicated by archaeological work carried out just north of Gwindy Street, within the postulated line of the defences, where limited traces of medieval occupation were revealed and no buildings, even close to the street frontage.[402] Through the documentary record the individuals involved in these two stages are identifiable, but as always it is very difficult to name exactly who was doing what. It may be that the design, planning and development of the town was more a process of discussion and negotiation between the various individuals involved, each drawing upon their specialisms to get the job done, whether administrators, master craftsmen, or merchants.

The town as it is today

Rhuddlan retains its medieval street pattern and the castle still sits above the Clywd river. The area of the Edwardian town contains buildings mainly of eighteenth century date onwards, though some are older.[403] Outside the historic core, beyond the lines of the former defences, are modern housing estates, swelling the size of the town. These have been built over the town's former defences except for the surviving double-bank and ditch section north of Gwindy Street. Near to St Mary's church the rear gardens of properties fronting Church Street contain some plot boundaries that are quite substantial. The area of the former Norman town is still quite open land, and the motte castle remains, while the area of Edward's new town retains an urban character and High Street is a busy road and local shopping area. In 2001 the population of Rhuddlan was around 4000 inhabitants. Things may have turned out differently had Edward's vision for the place been realised, but this third attempt to make a new town at Rhuddlan failed to turn it into anything much more than it had already been, and it 'sequestered in a corner of the new county of Flintshire, too remote from the outlying parts of the county'.[404]

CChR 1257-1300, p.277. Flint was also granted a charter even though it was also by then seven year's old.

Taylor, Welsh Castles, p.30.

Quinnell et al, Excavations, pp.82, 223. The new church was there by 1323: Flintshire Ministers' Accounts, 1301-1328, ed. Jones, p.xliv.

Soulsby, Towns of Medieval Wales, p.229, citing PRO: E 179/242/52.

Quinnell et al, Excavations, pp.38, 220.

The medieval names of these streets are recorded in the fifteenth-century survey: High Street/Bridge Street equate with the modern High Street, while Pepper Street, Harding Street, Pillory Street, Castle Street relate to the two cross streets. There is also a Clwyd Bank, probably the lane south of the church, and Dog Lane, perhaps the southern end of the present Castle Street, as it usually refers to a dog-leg shape: Jones, 'Document of Rhuddlan', passim. The bridge over the Clwyd is described as 'newly built' in 1331-2: Flintshire Ministers' Accounts, 1328-53, p.6.

RCAHMW, Flint, p.81: the castle 'not being a perfect parallelogram', the north-east and south-west ides 'are a few feet longer' than the north-west and south-east.

The area is calculated from field survey data gathered in 2004 (available via 'Data downloads'). For the Norman town defences and burh see Quinnell et al, Excavations, p.4, figure 1.2.

The High Street was also the town's market, as is made clear in a transfer of property in the town in 1323: a messuage and land in Rhuddlan 'of which one end abutted upon the highway leading from the market... to the bridge of the same town, and the other upon the cemetery of the church of St Mary'. Flintshire Ministers' Accounts, 1301-1328, ed. Jones, p.xliv.